The TARDIS sets down in what appears to be a contemporary, nondescript hotel, neither posh or a dive. Besides there are very few guests here: The Doctor and his companions only find a few alive, and they warn The Doctor that there is no escape from the hotel. And every person who visits the hotel has a room for what frightens them the most: a fear that they will not survive meeting.

The episode has a fairly simple set-up, and other than a few scenes, it is not heavy on special effects or pyrotechnics. It is basically a story of a few people in an empty hotel facing dread. Much like the last episode, and like much of Doctor Who during the Moffat era, the show is good at building suspense and horror through seemingly innocuous things. The inescapable hotel is just the right mixture of creepy and absurd.

This is also the third episode in which The Doctor is confused or misled about what is going on. The hotel is a maze, of sorts, and The Doctor who can instantly feel the earth moving under his feet, The Doctor who can always find a way out of a building because he counts his steps, is totally entrapped by the maze. This is another episode where he has been taken in by the worlds of appearances. At the end of the episode, The Doctor leaves Amy and Rory behind, and goes to travel by himself, which we will see more of in the next episode, Closing Time.